DIY LED Video Panel || Dimmable and Color Temperature Adjust

About: Ahoy! I am a 20 year old student! I am studying Electronics and Communication Engineering I Love Electronics, Coding and Computers. (Breaking things has been my motivation for making):P I make DIY Electr...
More About Curio. »

Hello Internet People!!

Welcome to my first Instructable.

I'll show you guys how you can make your own Video Light/ Work Light .

Step 1: Decide Kind of Light You Want and Select the LED Strips Accordingly

For this project you can go with any of these or even any combination of these , they vary in the color temperature of the light :

Cold white colored

Warm white colored

Daylight colored

Depending on your application you can go with any of these colored lights. If you want variable color temperature you can mix them up and control the brightness of each to get different color temperatures.

If you go with cold white and warm white as I did , keep the ratio of cold white to warm white to around 70:30.

If you have more warm white light's then the color at full brightness gets a little too warm.

I bought my LED Strips from Alixpress .

Step 2: Decide the Panel , Frame and Mounting Mechanism

I went with a circular shaped LED panel . I used Embroidery Hoops/Rings as the frame for my LED panel .

I cut out the panel from a thick and dense cardboard. You can also go with a wooden panel or even an metal panel .

Metal will also help dissipate the heat better. But metal , being metal is a lot heavier and the mounts will need to be extra robust.

Select a panel shape , Square/Rectangle/Circular

Consider the frame and mounting before hand.

I glued two hoops of the same size using two component epoxy to increase the ring thickness . This allowed me to drill a hole and fit in a tripod screw adapter (3/8 '' to 1/4'' ). Now I can mount it to any standard tripod mount.

Step 3: Stick the LED Strips to the Panel

Cut the LED strip's to required lengths and paste them to the panel . You can use additional glue if the adhesive is not good.

Step 4: Stick the Frame to the LED Panel

Hot Glue is your best friend when it comes to DIY , but keep in mind that hot glue does not work well with metal combinations.

You can also paint the inside of the frame white

Step 5: Connect All the LED Strips

Drill small holes next to the LED strip terminals , if you don't have space to route wires on the front. Also routing individual wires to the back makes the front look cleaner

Solder thin wires and route them to the back of the panel through the holes

If you have two colors , use opposite ends of LED strips and route them to the back . This allows you to group individual power leads better. In my case I soldered wires to one end of all white LED strips and the other end of Warm White LED strips

Use some thick wires to solder all the LED strips in parallel . If you have two colors like I do , put them in parallel separately

If you don't have thick copper wires , you can make one by twisting wires from an ethernet cable after removing their insulation.

Solder the individual LED strips to respective power lines

Solder main power cables to the ends of thick copper wires

Step 6: Gather the Components for the Dimmer Circuit and Solder!!

Here is a schematic I created, you can build the circuit by referring to it.

This uses an LM556 for PWM signal .LM556 is nothing but two 555 timers in a single IC.

I have two different colored lights , hence two timers to control the brightness of each of them.

The PWM frequency is set to around 30KHz . Above the maximum frequency humans can hear.

Here is the parts list

1X LM556 Dual Timer

2X 47K ohm potentiometers

2X IRFZ44n Mosfets

2X 0.01uF(104) cap's

2X 1000pF (102) cap's

2X 330/220 Ohm resistors

4X 1K Ohm Resistors

1X 14pin IC Socket

PCB and connectors

12V 3A+ capable power supply

Make sure to get good quality potentiometers

Select a power source by measuring the current draw (atleast 3A)

Solder the circuit according to the schematic

Attach the circuit to the back of the LED panel and connect the power leads of your LED panel.